


Heights

by celeste9



Category: Jurassic Park (Movies), Jurassic Park III (2001)
Genre: Coping, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Established Relationship, M/M, Nightmares, Post-Movie(s)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-27
Updated: 2017-08-27
Packaged: 2018-12-17 11:58:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,727
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11851116
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/celeste9/pseuds/celeste9
Summary: Billy just knows that here, there is nothing for him to face, and he can’t get out of his own head.





	Heights

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Tarlan](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Tarlan/gifts).



A branch catches Billy in the face as he runs and he recoils, but he doesn’t slow. The pain barely registers; the trickle of blood down his cheek is only a minor annoyance.

He can’t hear anything but the overly loud noise of his own body crashing through the jungle, the fallen branches crunching beneath his feet, the leaves and vines he pushes away from himself, the panting of his breath. He can’t hear anything but himself and the canopy leaves the world around him darkened but yet he knows they are still hunting him, somewhere high above.

They will keep hunting him until he is dead, or until they are.

Billy likes his chances less and less the more tired he gets, the more his lungs protest, the more his body aches.

It seems brighter and he knows he is approaching a clearing. He hears a screeching sound overhead and thinks to turn, thinks to hide, thinks to –

But they find him, they always do, and the screeching echoes as the predators circle their prey and Billy –

Billy wakes covered in sweat.

He lies against the mattress, the sheets tangled around his calves, and tries to catch his breath.

The room is dark and still. There is no jungle, no _Pteranodons,_ no blood on his face. There is only Billy and his bed and the quiet room; there is only Alan asleep next to him. Billy focuses on his own breathing to calm his rushed heartbeat. He looks at Alan’s back and thinks of the slow, even, measured pace of his breath as he sleeps; he imagines the feel of Alan’s warm breath against his skin and the thumping of his heart beneath Billy’s palm.

There is nothing hunting him.

He is safe here, in the quiet bedroom, in the full bed.

His back twinges and Billy doesn’t know if his scars truly ache or if it is only a phantom pain. He carefully disentangles himself from the sheets and maneuvers out of bed, moving slowly so that he won’t disturb Alan.

Alan has lost enough sleep over Billy’s nightmares.

In the bathroom, Billy leans forward over the counter and looks at himself in the mirror, the reflection of his flushed skin and red-rimmed eyes. He looks terrible. He feels worse.

He hears the echo of that screeching sound again and it makes him shiver.

He splashes water on his face in the sink and the cool touch of it to his fevered skin feels like a release. He wonders if this will ever stop. He hates how helpless it makes him feel, like he is a victim of his own head, his own dark imaginings.

In the cabinet there is a small bottle of pills for when Billy’s back bothers him. He shuts the light off and leaves the bathroom before touching it.

He doesn’t like to rely on that. He thinks he might use another sort of aid, one that will soothe more than his back.

A light is on in the kitchen, the small one above the counter. Billy walks down the hallway and finds Alan seated at the table, sleep-rumpled but awake. Billy sits across from him and feels guilty; he knows why Alan is awake.

Alan pushes a cold bottle of beer across the table to him. It is already open; Billy takes a sip.

“Thanks,” he says.

“Thought I was supposed to be the predictable one,” Alan says with a trace of his wry smirk.

“Must be getting old.”

“If you’re old, then I’d hate to know what that makes me.”

Billy takes another swallow. He knows that Alan doesn’t need him to say anything; he knows that Alan would probably prefer if Billy doesn’t say anything.

“Sorry,” Billy says.

Alan is quiet for a while. “Seemed like it was getting better.”

 _Sometimes I manage not to wake you,_ Billy thinks, but he definitely doesn’t want to say that.

“I didn’t punch you in the mouth this time,” he says.

Alan chuckles. “Thanks for that.”

Billy reaches over to rub his thumb along Alan’s jaw. “Thought I might’ve actually knocked a tooth out.”

“I’ve had worse.”

“Angie’s elbows are sharp,” Billy agrees, thinking of the intern who always managed to jab Alan with something whenever he tried to help her on the dig. He knows the actual worse that Alan is likely thinking of – definitely not Angie accidentally smacking him – but he also knows what things are better left not said out loud.

Billy is not the only one with unpleasant memories.

“She never did trim her nails like I asked,” Alan mourns. His lips upturn faintly. “Though I think that was because of you.”

“Yeah,” Billy says, smiling a little. Angie. She’d been cute. Just happened to catch him when he was too busy being distracted by grumpy mentors to notice pretty interns who wanted to give him their numbers.

He kicks Alan’s chair leg beneath the table. “Lucky for you, I was all ethical about it.”

Alan raises an eyebrow. “Ethical?”

“Sure. I was technically her supervisor, you know? Bad form.”

“So you seduced me instead. That was extremely ethical.”

“I like to think I allowed myself to be seduced, so it was you breaking the unspoken rules of propriety.”

Alan makes a soft, grunting sound in the back of his throat. Billy grins at him.

Alan rolls his eyes. “That goddamn smile,” he mutters.

“My secret weapon,” Billy says, and he isn’t really joking. He knows what works for him.

He sips his beer again and spins the bottle between his fingers. Light bantering with Alan and a bottle of cheap beer can’t make him forget why he is awake. His back still hurts and he still doesn’t know if it’s real or not. He isn’t sure it makes a difference; he’s broken either way.

He thinks about parasailing and wonders if he can convince Alan to go for it. Alan isn’t much for that sort of thing but he tends to let himself be convinced by Billy.

As part of his recovery they made him go to a therapist for a while. There had been a lot of talk of sharing his feelings and discussing his fears. Mostly Billy had thought it was kind of crap.

This isn’t about Billy’s fears, the parasailing. He would just like to do it again when he isn’t trying not to die.

“Still up for our trip, when the semester’s over?” Billy asks.

“Promised, didn’t I?”

“Don’t sound so excited.”

Alan’s got that wry look again. “All my vacations have been forced.”

Billy laughs. “I can believe that.”

“Besides,” Alan says, “I almost got eaten on my last one.” After a moment he adds, “Too soon?”

“Nah,” Billy assures him. “If you can’t joke about that with a guy who also very nearly got eaten, when can you?”

The therapist was mostly crap, Billy thinks, but one thing was true.

He does have fears. He wakes up from nightmares more nights than he doesn’t. That screech haunts him.

He rubs his shoulder, feeling a bit of scar tissue beneath his thin shirt. The therapist had wanted him to talk; Billy wants to do something. There is no use in talking, Billy thinks. He has always believed in facing your fears head on.

“I think, sometimes,” Billy says, taking his time, voice low. “About the island. I never… When I was a kid I was afraid of heights.”

Alan’s eyes widen slightly.

“Weird, right? I used to go up to the top of the slide in the playground and feel sick when I looked down. So I kept doing it. If I kept going up there, I told myself, there wouldn’t be anything to be afraid of. I was better than it. And that… that worked for me. So… so, when I think about the island, I think… I think, there’s something that I let beat me. And it keeps beating me.”

“Billy,” Alan says carefully. “You dove off the side of a cliff and rescued a young boy at the risk of your own life. Nothing beat you.”

Billy’s back aches. He leans forward in his chair.

“I hear them in my dreams,” he says. “I feel their jaws on my skin.”

Alan flinches.

Billy doesn’t know how to explain it. He doesn’t know how to explain his terror or his helplessness, and he doesn’t know how to explain that he can’t escape it. How powerless he had felt, and how powerless he still feels in his own head.

He doesn’t know what he would do if he actually went back to Isla Sorna. Find that cliff and stand there, like he had stood at the top of the slide? Bring a gun and shoot at that fucking nest? Throw a grenade at it?

He doesn’t know what he would do. He just knows that here, there is nothing for him to face, and he can’t get out of his own head.

Alan’s rough fingertips graze the back of Billy’s hand. “I said I’d let you drag me off on a vacation, but not there.”

The unspoken meaning is clear, hanging in the air. _I’d do anything for you – anything except that._

Billy doesn’t begrudge Alan his own fear, or his way of dealing with it. In his head he knows how utterly idiotic and foolhardy it would actually be to go back there. He knows it isn’t possible. He knows if he did, he probably wouldn’t make it back again.

He knows he probably shouldn’t have even made it back the first time.

But he needs _something._ He needs something to face.

The _Pteranodons_ flew free of their cage, Billy knows. Alan never mentions it but Billy hears things. Eric is a good kid with a big mouth.

Billy also hears when there are sightings of raptors that aren’t actually raptors, sightings that sound awfully like _Pteranodons_ searching for new places to nest.

“I’ve heard Costa Rica is nice.” Billy drags his thumbnail over a divot in the top of the table and tries to play it like it’s off-hand, like he doesn’t care.

Alan watches him, and Billy knows that Alan knows.

Alan always knows.

“I like to sweat,” Alan says, and Billy breathes again.

Something to face, Billy thinks, and he won’t have to do it alone.


End file.
